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Trendy: What’s been buzzing on Guatemala’s social networks

With the highest number of Facebook users in Central America and a Twitter population growing by the thousands every month, social media can be a great place to find out what’s buzzing in Guatemala. Of course, there’s also a whole lot of nonsense posted online too, but at XelaWho we like nonsense so in this section you will find some of last month’s social media trends, with the interesting & the informative alongside the vacuous & the ludicrous.

It´s been a crisis and scandal-ridden month for Guatemalan politics. Early in the month, a high court judge named Claudia Escobar Mejia resigned from her position in protest of the corrupt process by which justice officials are selected, in one of the most outspoken critiques yet from a Guatemalan judge. She claims that the process is rife with corruption, which plays a key role in protecting officials from legal action and leads to only 25% of the candidates who are nominated actually having the required experience.

The Constitutional Court has suspended the swearing in of supreme court judges, stating that the allegations are serious enough to warrant a temporary stay while they are examined. Civil society organisations have been calling for an annulment of the process, check out #CCAnuleProceso and #ProtestaMagistrados to keep up to date with their campaign for judicial independence. “¡La justicia no se vende!”

Meanwhile, in Guatemala’s Congress there’s been a lot of commotion around the election of the new Junta Directiva (Board of Directors). A coalition of the non-governing political parties decided to gang up in Congress ahead of the vote in order to ensure that no-one from the Partido Patriota (currently in power) is elected to the Junta. The Patriotic Party (PP) responded by covertly organising protests outside of congress (which, supposedly, they had absolutely nothing to do with and were instead the completely spontaneous actions of their supporters) that blocked the entrance to congress so the vote couldn’t be held. Naturally, many Guatemalans are pretty angry with the fiasco: “This is a rotten democracy; it doesn’t work for GT” posted one tweeter; “The ego of the PP doesn’t have any limits. They don’t care if they have to break the law for their own gain, they only care about pursuing their own interests”, wrote another. Check out #CrisisCongreso and #PugnaCongreso to keep up to date.

Meanwhile, Ebola hypermania has officially reached Guatemala: the government has put the airport on high alert and has invested in thermal cameras and other measures to ensure that ebola doesn’t enter the country. Not everyone is taking the threat so seriously though: one popular hashtag has been #TeQuieroAunqueTengasEbola (I love you even if you have ebola). We liked one tweet with a “Love in the time of ebola” photo, which we’ve posted below. Another funny ebola tag is #EstásPeorQueElÉbola (You’re even worse than ebola).

Some of the tweeters using #MentiraNivelPresidente (a lie as big as the president’s) also cracked us up this month. A few highlights included “solo la puntita te voy a meter!!” (“I’ll only put the tip in!!”); “yo voy en camino” (“I’m on my way” – particularly apt for los chapines); and a photo by Mr. Lord Chapin which we’ve included below.

Finally, Guatemala social media wouldn’t be complete with at least a couple of thousand tweets and posts related to football. This month, #HalaMadrid has been all the craze, especially after their win over Barcelona in theclasico match.